RachelWatch: Rick Warren is Even More Awful Than You Thought

Rachel started us off with a look at President Obama’s scheduled address, during which he is expected to announce a surge of 30,000 more troops in Afghanistan.

After running a clip of former President Bush smugly announcing that the Taliban was out of business seven and a half freaking years ago, Rachel noted that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee just concluded that Bush and Rumsfeld’s dream team bears a large share of the blame for the fact that we’re still there and chasing bin Laden at all.

How come Bush and Rumsfeld don’t get deployed out there? Isn’t clearing scrub brush in hot weather what Bush loves best? Surely they could find something for him to do.

I’d like Rumsfeld to be doing more outreach work. Such as explaining to each individual soldier who’s stuck out there why he didn’t send those reinforcements several years ago. And maybe getting each one to sign his fraternity paddle before he can go home.

Manhunt

As of last night, the search was still on for Maurice Clemmons, suspected of ambushing and shooting four police officers in a coffee shop outside of Seattle.

Rachel welcomed George Lewis of NBC News, who said that Clemmons is believed to be armed, but also seriously wounded and running out of people willing to help him.

I am amazed that there is anyone at all who is willing to help someone who is allegedly such a complete monster, but glad to hear that the supply is running thin.

If you have information about Clemmons’ whereabouts, the police tip line is (253) 591-5959.

Uganda Be Kidding Me

Rachel reported that Uganda is considering a death penalty for homosexuality and prison time for anyone who fails to report someone who they know is gay.

Loving caring man of God Rick Warren refused to condemn the proposed law. Because he wouldn’t want to interfere. How very polite of him.

Just to recap, we’re not talking about refusing to condemn garden variety mean-spirited bigotry like laws against gay marriage. We’re talking about a law that would condemn people to death by hanging for being gay.

He’s given the game away, right? We can stop with the pretense of ‘Reverend’ and just call him Hateful Bigot Rick Warren from now on, can’t we?

Because according to the pattern of what moves him enough to speak out, gays getting killed is way less disturbing to his peace of mind than gay marriage. There’s the bottom line.

Warren has to stop pretending he loves the “sinner” and stop pretending that it’s just that he doesn’t agree with people in the LGBT community who choose to live proudly and openly.

We now have proof that he does, in fact, have a problem with gays. So much so that he wouldn’t really mind if they started getting killed off. There’s the nugget of hate around which all his delicate phrasing is so carefully wrapped.

Also not speaking out is Senator James Inhofe (R – Oklahoma), in spite of his bragging about his close ties and influence in Uganda.

People on the hard right, when you wring your hands about being lumped in with vicious bigots, incidents like this are exactly why. If you don’t speak out against it, we have to assume you’re for it — just like you’re hoping all those racist teabaggers with the tasty dollars and votes will do.

If they carry racist signs to your rally, if they shout out awful threats during your speech, if they propose laws that should rightly horrify any thinking human being, you must stand up against them. If you don’t, you have no business whining when you get lumped in.

Of course the Family are up to their filthy elbows in this. Author Jeff Sharlet checked in to talk about the connections, and, in all seriousness, if you haven’t read his book The Family, hie yourself to the nearest library of bookstore immediately.

You won’t sleep well, but it’s modern religious and political history you’ll want to know.

By the way, Senator Inhofe’s D.C. office is (202) 224-4721.

Rick Warren is on Twitter. His Twitter home page, by the way, says “I live in the State of Grace.” Good to see he’s got that Christian humility thing down.

Should you contact either of them, remember to be polite but firm, as though you are disciplining someone else’s dog.

Which, essentially, you are.

Ms. Information

Those creepball White House state dinner gate crashers say they were invited, and a story in The Washington Post suggests that they may have thought they were allowed to be there.

Which somehow does not make these people who are hoping to be on reality TV and already have a publicist less creepy.

I will not type their names, because that is what they want.

Speaking of people who should drop out of the news so we don’t have to hear from them again, Senator John Ensign (R – Nevada) on Monday denied any impropriety in firing the man he was cuckolding or in trying to get him a new, illegal lobbying job.

Well, who would even think such a thing?v

Ensign also says that tons of fellow politicians want him to lend his prestigious name to their campaigns. Oh, I hope so.

“Vote for me and, like Senator Ensign, I will stop at nothing to bring in jobs.”

“I pledge to bring so much stimulus money to this town, you’ll think I’m sleeping with its spouse.”

Rachel also presented the strange case of hateball Hal Turner, who is awful and wrong. (See how that works, Senator and “Reverend”?)

Hal Turner is known for saying terrible, racist things on The Hal Turner Show. Recently he took it to the next level by escalating to threats against three Chicago judges, complete with publication of their photos and work addresses.

So it looked like a straightforward case of bastarding, only it turns out Turner was also an FBI informant, and now he’s claiming that he was horrible because the FBI asked him to be, and the FBI is saying they asked him to tone it down.

Which is kind of a mixed signal, since they kept paying him.

As gross as this story is, I am enjoying the humor of the fact that Turner wasn’t even loyal to his pathetic racist fans. He wasn’t even a bigot with integrity.

I wish I could see the faces of his jerkball followers when they realize that he was ratting them out the whole time. Good luck trusting each other from now on, creeps!

Tiger’s Amazing 25-Yard Drive

Rachel touched on the Tiger Woods scandalous car crash pressgasm just long enough to introduce Dave Zirin of The Nation, who makes a very good case that we should respect Woods’ domestic privacy.

…but also that we should perhaps take a closer look at his failure to speak out against (Hey! A theme!) labor violations and the international illegal sex trade when it comes to his businesses.